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Qiandao Lake is a man-made lake located in Chun’an County,   China , where archeologists have discovered in 2001 ruins of an underwater city. The city is at a depth of 26-40 meters and was named “Lion City”. There would have been 290 000 people living in this city during more than 1300 years. Touristic expeditions are projected. A diving into Chinese Antiquity in the next part of the article.

This spectacular monument was built by the famous Subehdar (Governor) of the Punjab (1041/1632), Hakim Aliuddin (sometimes also referred to as Ilmuddin) in 1634. Hailing from the Punjab town of Chiniot on the banks of the river Chenab, Aliuddin had been employed by shahzada (prince) Khurram (later Emperor Shah Jahan) as a hakim (physician). He rendered great service to the prince during the various campaigns, and became one of the most trusted aides of the emperor—it was Aliuddin, along with Prince Shah Shuja, who was entrusted with the task of bringing the body of the deceased queen Mumtaz Mahal from Burhanpur to Agra to be buried in the Taj Mahal. Granted the title of Wazir Khan in 1620, he was raised to the mansab (title) of 5000 foot and 3000 horse (panj-hazari) on Shah Jahan's accession to the Mughal throne (1037/1628). It is the same Wazir Khan, who was entrusted with the building of the Khwabgah and Hammam-e-Badshahi in Lahore Fort, just before Shah Jahan emb...

A city of lights, love, and ancient lore. By Bapsi Sidhwa | From the March 1 & 8, 2013 issue.    Ali Arif / AFP L ahore. If I toss up the word and close my eyes, it conjures up gardens and fragrances. Not only the formal Mughal gardens, with their obedient rows of fountains and cypresses, or the acreage of the club-strewn Lawrence Gardens, but the gardens in thousands of private houses with their riot of spring flowers. There is a carnival of jewel colors embedded in emerald lawns and hedges—a defiant brilliance of kachnar, bougainvillea and gulmohur silhouetted against an azure sky. And the winter and spring air are heady. They make the blood hum. I have spent most of my life in Lahore, and the city of 11 million provides the geographical location of my novels. Its ambience has molded my sensibility and also my emotional responses. To belong to Lahore is to be steeped in its romance, to inhale with each breath an intensity of feeling that demands ...